World Religion Day is coming up this weekend (21 January 2024) and according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Hinduism is the second top-followed religion in the country.
According to ABS, Hinduism has emerged as the second largest religion in the nation, after various denominations of Christianity, with 3 percent of the Australian population belonging to the Hindu faith.
Hinduism is the oldest and the third largest of the world’s major religions with globally nearly 1.2 billion followers.
Australia’s religious profile has been shaped by waves of migration and in the last Census Hinduism was seen as the fastest-growing religion in Australia.
The first Hindu migrants are believed to have arrived in Australia in the 19th century. Since the 1970s, New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria have had higher proportions of religious affiliation with Hinduism than other states and territories.
However, the state of Tasmania has also seen the highest growth rate in Hinduism since the 2016 Census. From 2016 to 2021, the proportion of people who are affiliated with Hinduism in Tasmania increased from 0.5% to 1.7% of the population.
Anglican and Catholicism have been, and are, the largest Christian denominations in Australia. ABS data shows the people identifying with Christianity in three categories – Catholic (20 percent), Anglican (10 percent), and Other Christians (14 percent) – and it remains the top religion across all denominations.
Islam is also at second position with 3 percent followed by Buddhism (2 percent) and Sikhism (1 percent). ABS notes that the median age for Hinduism is 31 years, Sikhism is 30 years and Islam is 28 years.
The third Sunday in January is annually celebrated as World Religion Day. It was established by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States in 1950 as a way to encourage interfaith understanding.
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